Film review: Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later is three sequels in one

Things come in threes. 28 Years Later is the third film in the long-running series, following director Danny Boyle's audacious original from 2002, 28 Days Later — it gave us fast zombies! — and mostly ignoring 2007's 28 Weeks Later.
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It's also the first of a series of three new films, to be followed early next year by 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and then (if the box office gods allow) by a third chapter some time thereafter.
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But it's also three movies in one, which may annoy some viewers and thrill others — just as you're getting into (or giving up on) one storyline, it suddenly shifts to another.
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After a brief and largely unnecessary prelude — yes, there was a zombie apocalypse once upon a time, we get it — the film opens with 12-year-old Spike and proud papa Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) heading out on a rite of passage in which the boy will kill his first zombie. Or 'infected,' to use the film's parlance.
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It turns out that the infectious outbreak of the first movie was contained to the British Isles, which the rest of the world simply and quickly quarantined; shades of Brexit. Spike lives in a community on an even smaller island, connected to mainland Britain by a causeway that it only passable at low tide.
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It's an odd existence, part turn of the millennium, part medieval. The rest of the world may have moved on to SmartPhones (which is also what this movie was shot on) and online shopping, but the U.K. has reverted to subsistence farming and archery. Even those with pre-pandemic memories only remember dial-up. Portraits of Queen Elizabeth II still decorate civic spaces. As one of the film's producers put it: 'Britain has paused.'
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Spike's quest — you can almost feel society forging new traditions, perhaps even a new religion — is shot with an almost dreamlike impressionism by Boyle. The nightmarish sense of the new world is crafted through use of a very old recording from this one — a recitation from 1915 of a 1903 poem by Rudyard Kipling, titled Boots, which you can also hear in the film's trailer. It's as terrifying now as on the day it was written.
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But the mood doesn't last. Jamie and Spike return home, where the boy becomes disillusioned with his father's behaviour, and convinced that the mainland may be home to a doctor who can help his mother (Jodie Comer), whose brain has become addled.
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Thus a new quest begins — less The Road, more road trip. Spike and his mum are aided by Erik (Edvin Ryding), a Swedish soldier who's been accidentally marooned in this backward land.

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Globe and Mail

an hour ago

• Globe and Mail

Gnarly and fierce zombie sequel 28 Years Later was worth the decades-long wait

28 Years Later Directed by Danny Boyle Written by Alex Garland Starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes Classification 14A; 115 minutes Opens in theatres June 20 Critic's Pick It hasn't quite been 28 years since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland breathed new terrifying life into the walking dead – by making them run like banshees out of hell. Their 2002 lo-fi apocalyptic thriller, 28 Days Later, which had Cillian Murphy scampering through the wreckage of London's Piccadilly Circus, not a soul in sight, stumbled into the post-9/11 moment with a story about a country decimated by a weaponized virus. Boyle and Garland, who only served as executive producers on the 2007 sequel (its story about U.S. occupation speaking directly to the Iraq War), are reunited in 28 Years Later. And if, like me, you expected them to double down on the relevance in a post-Brexit, post-COVID and war-addled moment, you'd be mistaken. 2025 summer movie preview: Superman, and a dozen other big-screen heroes, to the rescue There's room for those inevitable associations, for sure, but they're not insistent. Instead, this thrilling and effective reboot, a promising sign of what's to come, is happy to keep all that lightly baked-in while crafting a story more intimate and surprisingly emotional. Don't worry. If you're here for the gnarly splatter fest this franchise is known for, rest assured there are plenty bodies impaled or gnawed at, and even skulls ripped right from the neck, the spine dangling along as if the filmmakers are cribbing from Sub-Zero's finishing move in the Mortal Kombat video games. But at its heart, 28 Years Later is a Stephen King-esque coming-of-age story where death becomes a rite of passage for a child who is surrounded by the undead, anchored by young star Alfie Williams's tender and revelatory performance. His Spike, a 12-year-old boy whose fierce determination is at war with his intense vulnerability, is raised on a quarantined island. The only connection to the British mainland is a well-guarded bridge that can only be crossed at low tide. Negating the international viral spread promised at the end of its predecessor, 28 Years Later depicts a world that has successfully quarantined the pandemic to the U.K. Modern tech such as iPhones and social media have never touched Spike's island, a disconnect that sets up some of the funniest exchanges at the movie's halfway point. Instead, Spike's tight-knit community has reverted back to bows and arrows and working the land – and making raucous pub nights a tribal custom whenever a young lad becomes a man by venturing to the mainland to kill his first infected. What to watch this weekend: The Gilded Age on Crave has costume drama competition on Apple TV+ and BritBox We meet Spike and his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), when they take part in that ritual, navigating the mainland where the infected come in various states of deterioration. There are the slow crawlers, who slurp worms from the ground like appetizers before approaching human prey, alongside the more traditional fast runners. And then there's an Alpha, an evolved leader of the pack who is quicker, stronger and more tactical. Spike and Jamie's tour, scouring for the infected, is rather light on emotional stakes. But Boyle, forever a kinetic filmmaker and stylist, keeps things interesting with a jarring and haunting soundscape scraping together rhythmic radio transmissions from the past and accompanied by scattered archival images from British history – mostly past wars and war movies – disrupting the relative calm and keeping our nerves in a frenzy. When the infected do attack, and Spike and Jamie respond with their arrows, every kill shot is suddenly frozen, the camera rapidly swivelling around to a new position to absorb the violence. It's the visual equivalent of a record scratch Boyle hits maybe one too many times. Just when a sense of familiarity begins to kick in, 28 Years Later really gets going. After narrowly surviving his virgin expedition, Spike leaves the island once again, this time on a mission to save his mother (a brilliant Jodie Comer). The best summer movies of all time, according to our readers She's deteriorating, not from the infection but a different illness ravaging her body and mental state. He's escorting her to find a doctor known to be living in the deadly terrain, whom the islanders speak of in Colonel Kurtz terms. That doctor is played by Ralph Fiennes (crafty as ever), who we find covered head to toe in phosphorescent orange paste, surrounding himself with towers built from skulls and bones, underlining the playful Apocalypse Now references. 28 Years Later patiently builds up to these moments, during which the apocalyptic stakes are eclipsed by the warmth between the characters – their nurturing and protective instincts desperately clinging to joy, levity and the most comforting way to approach death. Boyle, who won the Best Director Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, has often let his sentimental side get the best of him. But here there's a maturity, gracefulness and elegance to how he hits those notes, though they're nearly undone by a goofy but admittedly fun coda setting up the series' next instalment. There's more carnage to come in this franchise where days turned to weeks, and then years, and the end persistently seems to be right around the corner (not just in the movies, mind you). 28 Years Later at least got me optimistic about what's next. Special to The Globe and Mail

National Post

7 hours ago

• National Post

Film review: Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later is three sequels in one

Things come in threes. 28 Years Later is the third film in the long-running series, following director Danny Boyle's audacious original from 2002, 28 Days Later — it gave us fast zombies! — and mostly ignoring 2007's 28 Weeks Later. Article content It's also the first of a series of three new films, to be followed early next year by 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and then (if the box office gods allow) by a third chapter some time thereafter. Article content Article content Article content But it's also three movies in one, which may annoy some viewers and thrill others — just as you're getting into (or giving up on) one storyline, it suddenly shifts to another. Article content Article content After a brief and largely unnecessary prelude — yes, there was a zombie apocalypse once upon a time, we get it — the film opens with 12-year-old Spike and proud papa Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) heading out on a rite of passage in which the boy will kill his first zombie. Or 'infected,' to use the film's parlance. Article content It turns out that the infectious outbreak of the first movie was contained to the British Isles, which the rest of the world simply and quickly quarantined; shades of Brexit. Spike lives in a community on an even smaller island, connected to mainland Britain by a causeway that it only passable at low tide. Article content It's an odd existence, part turn of the millennium, part medieval. The rest of the world may have moved on to SmartPhones (which is also what this movie was shot on) and online shopping, but the U.K. has reverted to subsistence farming and archery. Even those with pre-pandemic memories only remember dial-up. Portraits of Queen Elizabeth II still decorate civic spaces. As one of the film's producers put it: 'Britain has paused.' Article content Article content Spike's quest — you can almost feel society forging new traditions, perhaps even a new religion — is shot with an almost dreamlike impressionism by Boyle. The nightmarish sense of the new world is crafted through use of a very old recording from this one — a recitation from 1915 of a 1903 poem by Rudyard Kipling, titled Boots, which you can also hear in the film's trailer. It's as terrifying now as on the day it was written. Article content Article content Article content But the mood doesn't last. Jamie and Spike return home, where the boy becomes disillusioned with his father's behaviour, and convinced that the mainland may be home to a doctor who can help his mother (Jodie Comer), whose brain has become addled. Article content Thus a new quest begins — less The Road, more road trip. Spike and his mum are aided by Erik (Edvin Ryding), a Swedish soldier who's been accidentally marooned in this backward land.

CBC

17 hours ago

• CBC

Watching 28 Years Later in a post-COVID world

Social Sharing It's been over two decades since the release of 28 Days Later, the horror film that reimagined what a zombie thriller could be. Now, the franchise is back with a third installment, 28 Years Later. But in a post-Brexit, post-COVID world, are fans ready to return to a survival story about a rage virus spreading across the U.K.? Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with Vulture film critic Alison Willmore about the franchise's new film and how it lands in this current cultural moment.